…we don’t want a radical anti-American regime with links to terrorist organizations to have nuclear weapons. It’s another version of the Pakistan problem-there may in fact be powerful figures in the country crazy enough to let slip nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. That said, the prospect of state-ending retaliation may be enough to give these people pause. Now, let me call again on Fareed Zakaria as an expert witness. He suggests that the most likely dangers are geopolitical. A nuclear Iran, in his view, would prompt Egypt and Saudi Arabia to start looking into these weapons. More ominously, Israel would not sit by idly as Tehran closed in on a working bomb and would likely launch a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. At which point, the world’s most strategically important region would presumably spontaneously combust. And you thought we had problems now.

So, what can (the United States) do to head all this off? Well, one thing we can’t do in the short-term is invade…That leaves Zakaria’s recommended option, closing ranks with the Europeans and threatening tougher economic sanctions and the possibility of airstrikes, while dangling the carrot of direct negotiations and perhaps even normalized relations with the United States [Daniel Drezner]